2013年12月25日 星期三

Transcript 2

Hello everyone! I am Claire, and our topic
is should extramarital affairs be accepted? And, I’m the one who stand on the supporting
side. So, why do I support adultery? I am going to explain two points. First,
decriminalizing adultery. I will tell you the reason that laws against adultery
should be abolished and also introduce you some inappropriate laws. And the
second part, stop stigmatizing adultery. For this part, I will show you a case
to make you change your impression on adultery.

And laws against adultery should be
abolished because in several countries, umm…they are impose decriminalization
and violence on women. For example, in Philippines, adultery is defined
as( ok, I will.. Phoebe! Can you red this for me?) ” Adultery is committed by
any married woman who shall have sexual intercourse with a man not her husband…”(Phoebe
speaks) Yes! You see that?!The subject only refers to females. It is
obvious that this law shows inequality in gender. And the word “adultery” should
not refer to specific sex. Everyone is likely to engage in adultery.

And also, in some Islam countries where
laws ban, umm… men and women committing adultery, but! ( Umm… Ivy, can you read
this for me?) men are permitted to take more than one wife and also to enter
into temporary marriages. (Ivy speaks)Yes! Here, we see the law has defects. It
provides men with privileges to avoid being punished. A man who umm… won’t be
criminalized if he marries to his mistress in time before being found he has
committed adultery.

And, in Pakistan, laws require (Robert! Can
you read this for me?) a woman making an accusation of rape to provide
extremely strong evidence to avoid being charged with adultery herself. (Robert
speaks) This does violence on women because umm…continue! “a conviction for
rape is only possible with evidence from no fewer than four witnesses.” (Robert
speaks) umm! That means a woman who committed adultery has to find a man to ….make
love with her and find more than four witnesses to prove it.

And last In Jordan, there are honor
killings. And honor killing is, umm… Cassie, can you read this for me? “he who
discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and
kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty.” (Cassie
speaks)And this means men can kill
or injure women only for maintaining their dignity and reputations. Don’t you
think that is unreasonable? Yes, I think it is unreasonable. Because life is
the basic human rights, and, umm…but it seems that in Jordan honor is the
priority.

Compared with developed countries, umm…
there is no country criminalizing adultery in Europe. And in United States,
there are 22 states out of 50 criminalizing adultery. And here, I want to make
a clarification. Umm… I never say abolishing these laws can fully protect
women. But I am pretty sure if they are not abandoned, women are meant to be
injured.

And the last part, stop stigmatizing
adultery! And that means don’t give adultery discrimination!

So, what is adultery discrimination? Let me
ask Phoebe! If I…if I ask you to give me an adjective to describe adultery,
which one do you choose? And adjective. (Phoebe speaks) Umm… Ridiculous, umm…
ridiculous. Ok, Knot! Which one? (Knot speaks) Satisfied. (laughter) Ok!
Robert? Which one do you choose? (Robert speaks) Unacceptble. Yes, it’s close
to immoral, right? (laughter) So, when people are asked to give an adjective to
describe adultery, they usually pick ‘immoral’ And that is discrimination. But
there is a strong case to tell you that you can’t do so!

Assume that your husband or wife had a car
accident and has been paralyzed. He is too afraid to lose you, so he demands
your loyalty of sex. And when time flies, these years you spare no efforts to
take care of him in these years, but he cannot satisfy your sexual needs. So
finally,umm…you commit adultery! Should we call it immoral? No! I think the
wife has done all she can do. And adultery just a way she pursue her own
happiness. Thank you!

Q&A:

[Lin Kuo]: I want to make comment. I think
rather than to abolish law against adultery, furthermore, why we shouldn’t
dismantle the marriage institution? Because marriage institution…umm…I want to
response to Claire, you say, if you want sexual liberty, why do you just out of
the marriage? But, many legal rights is attached to the identity, and our
marriage system is descriminalize…is descriminate the person who enter…who are
not enter this system. So, and marriage…marriage and family…marriage, family
and nation is conspired with each other, and act in a way to exploitation of
labor. Not(only) labors from works (but also) and from domestic worker.

[Me]: Ok….Thank you!

[Vivien]: I want to ask Claire. You support
abortion…adultery. Do you have any premise for committing adultery?

[Me]: Usually it happens when a couple’s
marriage is not happy. And when it comes to adultery’s positive effects, the
couple wants to solve problems, but they don’t want to get divorced, so they
choose adultery.

[Vivien]: And why they don’t just get
divorced?

[Me]: Because there are so many reasons
like kids. If you get divorced, you cannot… cannot expect…you cannot imagine
your kids will be, like in the future, your kids may take drugs or become so…
bad, and you can get controlled of them. So, it you don’t get divorced, you can
take care of them. That is one of the reasons. There are so many many reasons.

[Cassie]: I want to ask Claire about your
point of view because… oh! I want to, first of all, express that your way to
interact with audience is very good. Because more attention on your
presentation. But it seems that your resources are kind of limited to some religions
or countries so I want to ask you about what’s your opinion about adultery in
Taiwan because in Taiwan, some of the adulteries seem to not relate to
religions or adultery problems, just like a person want to have other relationship.

[Me]: I
have seen a news recently, umm…. A news that the minister of culture 文化部長龍應台 She has talked about, umm…
when she talked to foreigners, she felt embarrassed because… when they are
talking about the laws of adultery. And I think decriminalizing adultery laws
is a trend. Umm… in these developed countries because they focus on individual
thinking. Maybe for their government, adultery is just individual business.